Grounded by pain

Yesterday I was going to go to a funeral, I wanted to say farewell and pay my respects and its something that I really wanted to do, I had even been resting up so that I would be well enough to attend.

Unfortunately I’m not able to say that I will go here on this date or there on this day, I have to just wait until I am having an okay day and say let’s go out, I’m feeling like I’m able to!

I have been to three funerals in the past year (or so), they were all at the crematorium and so I was only out for a short time and I didn’t attend the wake for two of them because of pain levels. Yesterday the funeral was a Romantic Catholic full on smells and bells affair and so unlike the the twenty minute crematorium funerals I knew I needed to be feeling quite good to sit in my wheelchair that long and unfortunately I have been having a flare up for the past few days.

This is where I get frustrated, this was not something that I can do another day when I’m feeling up to it, the funeral doesn’t wait until I’m okay to attend, its done and dusted (no pun intended) and I missed out on saying goodbye to my friends mother. I will now have to wait until I’m feeling okay and go to visit her grave and I’m not usually a grave visiter type.

So once again pain has grounded me and I know it won’t be the last time, I’m also very aware that the summer (what summer) is almost done and the colder months are creeping up on me like pain ninjas ready to inflict even more pain.

I have to fill this time I have with things to keep me occupied, I watch a lot of boxsets that I download and I have watched so many. My latest is a programme called Justified, I’m on season three but the fact that I can watch four episodes in one day means that they don’t last very long and I have to then find my next fix and its getting harder to find a decent boxset, so far I have watched/am watching

and many more that I can’t remember. Then of course there are the films, these are good on very high pain days because I can put a film on that I have watched many times before and it doesn’t matter about being distracted by high pain. I like a good action film like Die Hard or Lethal Weapon and I love Star Wars but I’m also into animation and my favourite is Flushed Away, my family are sick of the film but hey ho, I have the remote lol.

I know that many many more of you are in the same position, my daughters are grown up but if you have young children you will know the upset of having to let your family down because you are having a flare up. Of course they say they understand but they are disappointed and we feel like crap because we are the reason that the planned day is now ruined. Its not our fault, we didn’t choose to live a life like this but we still feel guilty and I don’t have any solution to this burden.

Chronic pain isn’t just about being in pain, it takes over your entire life and I’m not sure I will ever come to terms with that.